


Sigue Adelante

by Krimzie



Category: Sly Cooper (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, after sly 4, thieves in time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 11:24:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20795864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krimzie/pseuds/Krimzie
Summary: SlyFox Week 2019: Rooftops“I don’t think they really believe our testimony. They think we’re crazy,” Carmelita said, pinning him with a stare. There was something in her eyes, something he’d never seen before, and it made him nervous. “Are we crazy?”





	Sigue Adelante

**Author's Note:**

> Angst again. Sorry, not sorry! x)

Bentley found her on the roof of Interpol, sitting on a east-facing ledge and smoking a cigarette. The midnight air was cold and she wrapped her free arm around herself, pulling her leather jacket tighter. The breeze blew unruly blue-black curls in front of her eyes and she did nothing to push them aside. As he rolled closer, he saw her eyes were glassy behind her glasses, from drink or tears or both.

“Hey,” is all he said. She wasn’t startled, having asked him here, and she’d already heard his approach from the fire exit. He technically had clearance now, given his collaboration on the Le Paradox case and Sly’s disappearance. Interpol had even come to rely on him, off the books, for quite a few tech favors--under a pseudonym, of course, but no one in Interpol was fooled. Still, Carmelita told him to meet her on the roof anyway. All the better. Less ears to eavesdrop.

“Hey,” she echoed. She took a long drag from the cigarette and exhaled away from him, looking off toward the Eiffel Tower. One ear twitched at the sound of a patrol car’s siren in the distance, then resumed its half-hearted position against her head.

“He’d be disappointed you broke your streak,” Bentley said, gesturing toward the cigarette. 

“Yeah, well,” she said, not looking his way, and didn’t follow up with anything of substance.

Bentley’s brows furrowed. “Nothing from the Salaman lead?”

She threw her head back and looked up at the near-full moon above them. “A total bust,” she said quietly. She braced one hand behind her, continuing her gaze at the sky. “Says his workshop doesn’t even have the power source necessary for that component.”

“And you believe him?”

“I believe him,” Carmelita admitted. She looked down at her hand, flexing her knuckles. He noticed dried blood. “It was the same story every time.” 

“So you’re suspended again.”

“Suspended again,” she confirmed emptily. “Either I join deep cover narcotics after suspension or graciously submit my resignation.”

It was then that Bentley noticed the backpack of belongings and the single file box stacked next to her. “You submitted your resignation?” he asked in disbelief. His heart sank. He had watched her unravel over the past year but figured that as long as she kept her job and kept showing up to work, she’d be alright. She’d pull through. But now…

She finally pulled her eyes to his. “You sound surprised,” she said. Another drag. “I thought about the alternative. Hotel after hotel, flight after flight, busting rings and globe-hopping. It would be a great distraction. I’d get to use my real gun.” She flicked the ashes down, way down off the side of the building. A pause, then in a voice smaller than he liked to hear. “They said I should move on.”

Bentley swallowed but said nothing.

“I don’t think they really believe our testimony. They think we’re crazy,” Carmelita said, pinning him with a stare. There was something in her eyes, something he’d never seen before, and it made him nervous. “ _ Are _ we crazy?”

“Carmelita…” Bentley said, moving a little closer. From here, he could see the corner of the picture of her and Sly poking from the file box by her tail. She followed his gaze and pursed her lips, pulling the picture free. She looked at it for a while, although Bentley knew she’d memorized every pixel of it.

“A time machine,” she scoffed. 

“It happened,” Bentley affirmed, “I swear it did. We have the warp signatures to prove it. You know this. You know the file.” He felt a little panic rising. He didn’t like where this was going. He didn’t like where her head was… or where it wasn’t. He shouldn’t have said it, knowing full well her temper, but he did anyway: “You’re giving up.”

He expected her to wheel on him, maybe punch him square in the jaw. He wished she had. 

She didn’t nothing but sigh. She flipped the picture over in her hand.

“Acéptalo, supéralo y sigue adelante,” she said sadly. “I’ve chased every lead we could find, Bentley. I’ve drained all your resources, reached out to all your contacts. Say we complete your device. We’ve a point zero four chance of ending up in the same timeline as him and that’s  _ with _ coordinates. All that aside, all of this assumes that he’s even… that he’s even…”

“I know,” Bentley cut her off, unwilling to go down that road with her.

She swung her leg back over the ledge, landing onto the roof. She paced over to the water reservoir and leaned against it. “I don’t know that I can keep doing this.” 

Bentley rolled over to her side, saying nothing. He put a gloved hand on her forearm. 

All at once her face crumpled and she choked a sob.

Sly was his brother and he’d taken it upon himself to care about Carmelita in his absence, and up until now, she’d been relatively predictable, behaving in ways he recognized. This? He didn’t know what to do about this. “What can I do? What do you need?”

She shook her head, swiping furiously at the stray tears as if he hadn’t already noticed them. “I don’t know,” she said under her breath, voice cracking. “It’s a year next week and we’re no closer to finding him. I’m supposed to be one of the best cops this side of London and there’s nothing I can do, nothing I can find.”

Bentley looked down at his wheels, idly sliding a finger on the groove in the rubber. He didn’t know what to say. How could he? She was right. Both of them had been inexhaustible with their respective resources and every beacon of hope turned out to be a garbage fire in time. They couldn’t get their hands on the components, they couldn’t reconstruct the power source...

“What… what’ll you do?” Bentley asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Well, you can’t hide at home and drink all day,” he said, perhaps more harshly than he should’ve. “If you’ve got nothing better to do, the least you can do is stay on the case with me.”

“There  _ is no case!” _ Carmelita shouted suddenly, canines bared. Bentley rolled back instinctively, the fire in her eyes not the variety he was wishing for. “Interpol would’ve called any other investigation cold  _ months  _ ago and as a favor to me they let me hemorrhage resources all over this hunt, but it’s hopeless!” She slammed a palm into the water tower, startling the pigeons roosting on its roof. They fluttered away, cooing. “We’re chasing a ghost.”

He was silent. She pulled on the cigarette, steadying herself.

“I don’t want to give up on him. I never want to give up on him.” She was quieter now. “And were the roles reversed, he’d never talk like this. He was always so… so optimistic. He would never…”

“You don’t know that,” Bentley interjected. “He’s never lived this. You can’t be so hard on yourself.” He rolled up and took her hand, surprised she didn’t pull away. Nervous, he admitted, “And you’re only saying what we’ve all been feeling. That’s...  _ brave _ .” Carmelita didn’t respond but gave his hand a light squeeze before turning to her pile of office vestiges. Bentley looked at her things pointedly. “The spare room’s always open,” he said, careful not to call it Sly’s. “Rent-free. I wouldn’t mind your help with the latest set of dark net databases but it might take a few overnights.” Trying to lighten the mood, he ventured, “I heard you have some free time coming up?”

She looked over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow. The sadness didn’t budge, but she leveled him with a more familiar squint. “Some,” she said dryly. “But I don’t work with criminals.”

“Do you work with friends?”

His sentiment caught them both off guard. Something flashed across her face, something soft and vulnerable, and she nodded once, twice, before steeling herself; Bentley for a fleeting moment had caught a glimpse of the woman Sly’d fallen so hard for and for the first time, he understood why.

“Come on, then. We’ve got work to do.”


End file.
